1 Line up extra AA activities for the holiday season. Arrange to take newcomers to meetings, answer the phone at a clubhouse or centraloffice, speak, help with dishes, or visit the local alcoholic ward at a hospital.

2 Be host to AA friends, especially newcomers. If you don't have a place where you can throw a formal party, take one person to a dinnerand spring for the coffee.

3 Keep your AA telephone list with you all the time. If a drinking urge or panic comes- postpone everything else until you've called an AA member.

4 Find out about the special holiday parties, meetings, or other celebrations given by groups in your area, and go. If you're timid take someone newer than you are.

5 Skip any drinking occasions you are nervous about. Remember how clever you were at excuses when drinking? Now put the talent to good use. No office party is as important as saving your life.

6 If you have to go to a drinking party and can't take an AA with you, keep some candy handy.

7 Don't think you have to stay late. Plan in advance an "important date" you have to keep.

8 Worship in your own way.

9 Don't sit around brooding. Catch up on those books, museums, walks,and letters.

10 Don't start getting worked up about all those holiday temptations. Remember - "one day at a time".

11 Enjoy the true beauty of holiday love and joy. Maybe you cannot give material gifts - but this year you can give love.

12 "Having had a..." No need to spell out the Twelfth Step here,since you already know it.

At my first Christmas family party there were young children present, I made it my responsibility to keep them amused and occupied. In doing so I mingled with other non drinking members of my family that I had never noticed as non drinkers before that time as I had previously always gravitated to those who drank like me. It was the beginning of the realisation that I had spent my life with my eyes and ears half shut!

Don't know exactly where I am going but I'm on my way and it's already much better than where I've been.

Cynbad wrote:What do you say to someone who is pouring you a drink and be polite?

"At a proper time and place explain to all your friends why alcohol disagrees with you. If you do this thoroughly, few people will ask you to drink." (page 102)

I typically tell people quite clearly that I am among the one-in-ten who cannot drink safely. I tell them it has something to do with some abnormal body chemistry due to insufficient quantities and qualities of enzymes during metabolization (digestion) causing me to drink beyond all mental control and ultimately break out in spots like gutters and jail cells. I do temper that a bit and try to choose my words carefully at the dinner table, of course, but I give people an opportunity to know it would be life-threatening and thereby homicidal (immoral) to push a drink at me. Some people might never catch on, some will refuse to believe all of that because it hits too close to home and others might just think we are weird, but I know the facts about myself and neither do I drink gasoline.

======================="We A.A.s do not *stay* away from drinking [one day at atime] -- we *grow* away from drinking [one day at a time]."("Lois Remembers", page 168, quoting Bill, emphasis added)=======================

Last year was my first round of sober holidays. I was nervous as well. The list Ann posted has some good suggestions. One of those I used was avoiding dinners where I knew there would be alcohol (AKA if my brothers-in-law were there ) I was just too powerless over it to put myself in a position to have to say no especially if it was right in front of me. I also went to a meeting Thanksgiving night. Make sobriety your number one priority and do whatever is necessary to maintain it right now. You may have to power through this one but know that there is a solution in the 12 steps which will allow you to enjoy future holidays.

As far as what to tell someone who is pouring you a drink if you do end up in that spot? No thanks should suffice. You might be surprised at how easy they take it and how much less normal people drink than you thought they did.